Innovation, Commercialisation And Networking (ICAN) is an event which aims to provide inspirational and informing content for any sized business or individuals with great ideas who want to stay ahead of the game.

It is a crucial time for businesses within the UK and innovation is key to maintaining a competitive advantage. New ideas are vital for businesses but this event looks at turning these ideas into reality, how to get innovation projects funded, who to turn to for support and guidance and crucially, how to turn these ideas into commercial success.

You’ll hear from businesses who have been there and done it, put your questions to an expert innovation panel and participate in workshops tailored to specific innovation topics. In addition to all of this, the event will provide a great networking opportunity to meet like-minded businesses and professional support services.

We look forward to seeing you at Bournemouth University on the 30th January 2019.

At meetings we discuss issues following two presentations, and share our on-going work into humanising practice in education, practice and research.

All staff, students and external visitors are welcome

If you would like directions to the venue, have any queries OR If you are not already a member of the Humanising SIG e-mail list and would like to be informed of future events, please contact Caroline Ellis-Hillat cehill@bournemouth.ac.uk

We are a group of academics and practitioners who have an interest in what makes us Feel Human and how this is linked to Health, Wellbeing, Dignity and Compassion. As part of the Centre for Qualitative Research CQR we use Lifeworld approaches, embodied knowing and subjective experience as the basis for our understanding. For more information please click here

Considering we were late and included much of Monday’s news in the last update, this is a bumper update for you. Lots of data and lots of speculation about fees etc. We have managed to avoid the B word this week – as you will have had enough of it from all the other news sources.

Internships

Sophie Bradfield, the Policy & Campaigns Coordinator for SUBU, returns with another guest piece for us this week

Sutton Trust has published research today on graduate internships detailing that “39% of graduates in their twenties have done an internship, including almost half (46%) of young graduates under 24.” These statistics have a direct correspondence with research published in a Lancaster University HECSU-funded Graduate Resilience Project in 2016, looking at how students transition after graduating, where “45% of respondents identified a concern that they lacked relevant experience.” Pairing this with the competition for graduate jobs, it’s of no surprise that so many students seek to undertake internships. At BU gaining placements and real-world experience is a unique selling point and as BU proudly states on the placement information page “90% of our graduates have relevant work experience and this can give you a real head start in the competitive jobs market.” The Students’ Union at Bournemouth University (SUBU) is in absolute agreement that offering opportunities to gain experience can really help students to stand out from the crowd; learn transferable skills for employment; and increase employability and so we have a lot of extra-curricular opportunities on offer for students and collaborate with BU on a number of joint projects including recruiting paid students to be on programme review panels.

Welcome back to the wonderful world of Knowledge Exchange and Impact! We may not have blogged for a while, but we have been working hard to ensure that BU’s research and knowledge is informed by society for the benefit of society. Here are a selection of our achievements for the last month:

Public Engagement

We ran 10 successful events for the ESRC Festival of Social Science (3-10 November), reaching around 350 people across Bournemouth and London. Research projects across all four Faculties were highlighted and topics encompassed sex, sexuality and gender, creative responses to ageing and loneliness, face super-recognisers, responsible online gambling, visual storytelling for impact and the inevitable Brexit. Plus, there were dogs from Caring Canines, who pretty much stole the show.

November’s Cafe Scientifique was attended by 44 people, who came to hear Dr Xun He’s talk on how behaviour is shaped by other people’s actions. Next month (4 December) Dr Rebecca Rendell will be discussing the physiology of living life to the extreme. Cafe Boscanova, 650 Christchurch Road, Boscombe, 7.30-9pm. (Upcoming events at Cafe Scientifique.)

Social Media

The impact officers collectively joined Twitter (check out the account here) and successfully used the platform to promote various public engagement events as well as keep academics informed about all things REF and impact.

Student Engagement

Dr Deborah Gabriel discussed political issues surrounding race in the education system at October’s TalkBU chat session. Later this month (22 November), Dr Jane Healy will be talking about hate crime directed towards people with disabilities. Follow #TalkBU and @BU_Research on Twitter, or the BU Research blog for regular news, research and event updates.

Throughout October, strategy meetings for each UOA were held, where members of RKEO’s Impact team, UOA leads, impact champions and PDRAs agreed a plan of action for the submission of BU’s impact case studies to REF2021. The REF website has a searchable database of all the 2014 impact case studies here.

Team Members: Update

We said goodbye to Jane Kavanagh-Lauridsen, who had been covering Genna del Rosa’s maternity leave. She is off to the University of Southampton to be their Business Engagement Manager – and of course we wish her well.

Since the last KEIT post, four new Impact Officers have been working with the different faculties to help develop impact case studies and promote research impact generally. If you haven’t already met them, they are: Amanda Edwards (FST), Matt Fancy (FM) Amanda Lazar (HSS) and Brian McNulty (FMC).

If you would like support or advice on all things impact and knowledge exchange, please contact the relevant person below:

Last week saw the bi-annual meeting of the Stay Active and Independent for Longer (SAIL) Research Team. Research colleagues from Belgium, the Netherlands and France travelled to Hunstanton, Norfolk to meet with UK partners from Norfolk County Council, University of East Anglia and Bournemouth University. The project is in 4 phases: Explore, Design and Develop, Test and Evaluate. October 2018 will see the SAIL project move into the third phase: Test. The visit to Hunstanton provided an opportunity to see at first hand the challenges which face the area in terms of supporting an aging population now and in the future. The Mayor of Hunstanton hosted an evening reception in the Town Hall to welcome the SAIL Research Team and to learn more about the progress which is being made.

Student Loans – further sales

On Wednesday the Government announced their intention to sell off another set of student loans (written statement here). Angela Rayner Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary was granted an Urgent Question within Parliament to raise the sale and requested a statement from Universities Minister Sam Gyimah. Sam stated:

I want to explain to the House the rationale for the sale of the student loan book and make some important points. The sale will categorically not result in private investors setting the terms or operating the collection of repayments. Loans in scope will continue to be serviced by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Student Loans Company on the same basis as equivalent unsold loans. Investors will have no right to change any of the current loan arrangements or to directly contact borrowers. Furthermore, the Government’s policies on student finance and higher education are not being altered by the sale. These older loans, the borrowers of which benefited from lower tuition fees and lower interest rates, are not in the scope of the current review of post-18 education and funding.

The sale represents an opportunity for the Government to guarantee money up front today, rather than fluctuating and uncertain payments over a longer period. That will allow the Government to invest in other policies with greater economic and social returns. We will proceed with the sale only if market conditions remain favourable and if the final value-for-money assessment is positive.

Angela Rayner continued to question the Minister stating the sale related to £4 billion of the student loan book and requesting for a valuation of the loans up for sale (it wasn’t provided). She also highlighted that the National Audit Office findings suggested the DfE made a loss of £900 million on the previous student loan book sale, with £600 million in future income lost. Finally she asked:

Will the Minister confirm that when the sales go ahead the Government will lose a source of income for as long as 25 years in exchange for a one-off payment? Can he give us any justification for the policy of selling off an asset to flatter this Government’s terrible position on national debt? With nearly £1 billion lost in the previous sale, just how low would the sale price have to go before the Government decided that selling simply was not worth it?

Sam Gyimah responded: Student loan sales in this country have happened over nearly two decades. This is not new…The National Audit Office did refer to the write-down of the loan book, but anybody who has studied accounting will know that the present value of a future income stream will be lower than the value if one waited 30 years. In capturing some of that money, the Government can invest in vital public services today, and that is the rationale for selling the student loan book…The sale will also be good for the taxpayer. Once people have been to university, it serves no public purpose to have the money tied up. The sale will release that money to invest in other priorities. On the valuation, the face value of the sale is £3.9 billion, but what we will do and how we will look to proceed will ultimately depend on market conditions.

The Lords were also granted a debate on the topic and picked up where Angela Rayner left off.

Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour): I listened to Mr Gyimah’s exchange today with my colleague Angela Rayner, the shadow Secretary of State. Unfortunately, he dodged all of her questions on the valuation of the loans the Government are selling. He simply confirmed that the Government would forgo the 25-year revenue stream in favour of a one-off receipt…The Government have said that the revenue from selling off student loans now will enable them to invest in vital public services today. We all know that the Treasury has the final say on specifically where this windfall will go, but surely most, if not all, of it should be reinvested in the education budget; goodness knows there is a need for it.

In a later statement Angela Rayner, commented: “The last time the Tories sold off a slice of the student loan book they lost hundreds of millions of pounds, yet this latest announcement shows they have learnt absolutely nothing…These repeated experiments with privatisation are not in the interests of either taxpayers or the students facing a mountain of debt for a university education… instead of fixing the problem the Tories are resorting to a short-term fix at a long-term cost to the country.

MoneySavingExpert.com immediately blogged to reassure students their repayments wouldn’t be affected by the proposed sale. MoneySupermarket have a breakdown of student spending which highlights a £142 weekly shortfall in the student loan against outgoings.

Brexit: EU Students and Staff

Wonkhe report: Higher education staff who are EU residents are to be prioritised in a new phase of the EU Settlement Scheme pilot, which will open in November. Eligible to apply are those who are employed by or work at a higher education institution or overseas higher education institution in the UK which is classified as such on the Tier 4 Register of licensed sponsors. The new phase will be a further pilot to scale up the testing of the scheme in addition to HE staff it also covers the health and social care sector. The new phase will open on November 1 and will run until 21 December this year.

Alistair Jarvis, Chief Executive of Universities UK, stated:

“There are nearly 50,000 EU nationals working in UK universities and they make a vitally important contribution to our campuses and communities. Many leading researchers and key university staff in the UK are from other EU countries. This enables our universities to maintain their world-class excellence in teaching and research. Highly trained international technical, professional and support staff also play an important role in our universities.

“We welcome the news therefore that they will be able to obtain settled or pre-settled status as one of the earliest groups in the scheme. This will provide much needed clarity for our EU staff and for universities. It is vital for our economy and society that the UK retains and continues to attract the best and brightest from across Europe post-Brexit.

The Immigration Minister also stated the government’s intention to double the Immigration Health Surcharge (HIS) to £400 per year (or £300 per year for students). This change will require ratification in Parliament by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

AI & Industrial Strategy

Next Tuesday the Education Committee will meet Pepper the robot who will answer questions in a session on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Pepper is part of an international research project developing the world’s first culturally aware robots aimed at assisting with care for older people. The Committee will hear about her work with students across the faculties at Middlesex University, including a project involving teaching primary level children, and what role increased automation and robotics might play in the workplace and classroom of the future. After a demonstration by Pepper, the Committee will explore with witnesses, including those from Middlesex University, how robots can be used to support learning, and the skills needed to adapt to the growth in artificial intelligence and automation.

UTCs

University Technical Colleges (UTCs) are in the news again with the Guardian drawing on the Education Policy Institute (EPI) report which finds UTCs ineffective as 50% of students drop out. UTCs are for 14-19 year olds, with a strong focus on technical education. They are sponsored by universities and supported by employers. The EPI report notes that there are 50 UTCs open in England. An additional 10 having closed or fundamentally changed into a different institution type in recent years.

UTCs: provision and characteristics

Many UTCs are struggling with student numbers. A third of students are enrolled at one of the 20 UTCs with decreasing student numbers.

A huge proportion of UTC students are dropping out after two years. Over half of students enrolled leave between the ages of 16 and 17, failing to progress from Key Stage 4 (14-16) into Key Stage 5 (16-18). Students with lower GCSE results, special educational needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds are the least likely to continue.

These significant drop-out rates in UTCs continue after age 16. Those that remain for post-16 study are still far less likely to complete their final studies than students in other types of education:
– 63% of UTC students studying broader vocational qualifications completed their final assessment, compared to 83% nationally.
– 69% studying occupation-specific qualifications finished, compared to 81% nationally.
– For A-levels, 80% of students finished, compared to 94% nationally.

A large proportion of UTCs receive poor inspection outcomes from Ofsted:
– 1 in 5 were rated ‘inadequate’ – twice the national average.
– 2 in 5 were rated ‘requires improvement’ – four times more than the national average.
– Just 4% were rated ‘outstanding’ – compared to 22% of secondary schools.

Progress and outcomes of students in UTCs

UTC students make almost a whole grade less progress between leaving primary education and the end of Key Stage 4 than other students in state-funded schools. Significantly, this poor progress is particularly acute for high attainers, who make over a grade’s less progress than high attainers in all state-funded schools. When considering maths alone, UTC students as a whole lag behind by almost half a grade. Only around half of UTC students achieve at least a pass in GCSE English and maths, compared with two-thirds nationally.

UTC students who stay on to study A levels also perform below the state funded average. The average grade obtained at A level in UTCs is a D, compared to the average of a grade C in all state funded institutions. However, students taking technical and vocational qualifications at a UTC perform close to the national average – but higher than those in Further Education colleges. On average they achieve a distinction in applied general qualifications (mainly BTECs) and Tech levels.

UTC students perform well when retaking their GCSEs – improving their grades in English and maths by around a third of a grade.

20% of Key Stage 5 leavers go on to do an apprenticeship, three times the national average (7%), suggesting that UTCs are delivering good school-work transitions.

Supporting skills needs in the economy

UTCs offer more technical pathways than other school types, with students much more likely to choose to study STEM subjects: 10% of UTC Key Stage 4 entries are in computer science (2% are nationally), 8% are in chemistry and/or physics (twice the national average), 16% in science general/combined (12% are nationally). All these calculations exclude English and maths.

UTCs are ensuring students are trained for jobs in technical industries where high-skilled employment is expected to grow. Employment growth is projected in sectors that UTCs specialise in such as construction, IT, and health. This could present increased employment opportunities for students in UTCs.

Recommendations

The government should consider changing the admissions age for UTCs from 14 to 16. While it is common in other countries for students to make a transition in education before 16, England essentially has a pre- and post-16 system. UTCs have struggled with admissions at age 14. With poor levels of progress and retention, it is not clear that students are benefiting from a 14-19 education.

With provision starting at age 16, UTCs should focus on delivering high-quality existing technical qualifications and eventually the new ‘T-levels’ – relevant to local and national skill needs. With UTCs only focusing on ages 16-18, this would give them an opportunity to deliver differentiated, specialised, high-quality technical education. This should allow UTC students to progress to higher levels of technical education in Institutes of Technology, National Colleges, university, or other providers, should they wish to pursue further study.

Better measures are needed that account for the technical-oriented provision of UTCs. Improved destination measures are needed that also account for the characteristics of students, so that the particular intakes of UTCs can be taken into account.

Misrepresentation of Official Statistics: Schools

Last week Nick Gibb, Minster of State for School Standards stated the UK’s spending on education was the third highest in the world. It hit the headlines as it controversially included university student tuition loans as well as fees paid by private school pupils and positively misrepresented literacy rankings. The UK Statistics Authority criticised here, the letter highlighting it was the fourth time in the last 12 months the DfE has misused statistics. Damian Hinds, Secretary of State for Education, responded here providing alternative statistics to blur the lines of the previous misuse. Whereas the Permanent Secretary within the DfE, Ed Humperson, was willing to hold his hands up and say they’ll do better in this letter.

The future of UK research funding

From Research Professional: The House of Commons science and technology committee has published the written evidence for its ongoing inquiry into the balance of UK research funding. This inquiry was launched in July, two months after UK Research and Innovation published a strategic prospectus in which it announced that it was carrying out an internal review of the balance of funds between the research councils, Research England, Innovate UK and interdisciplinary research. It seems that UKRI would like to alter the balance in favour of more research across disciplinary boundaries and possibly more research that yields impact in its many forms.

It is interesting to look at who submitted evidence – not very many universities, although the Russell Group (and some of their members individually), UUK and GuildHE made submissions, alongside many of the Societies and Academies, the Wellcome Trust etc. So did the Department for BEIS.

Widening Participation, Students’ Achievement and Outcomes

A thought provoking blog on Wonkhe this week: Beyond school qualifications: how to make admissions truly inclusive. It tackles the false positives (admitting a student when it would have been better to decline) and false negatives (not offering to a student who would have done well) and considers the influence of a range of WP factors. The article favours foundation years to tackle the false negatives, and considers how efforts could be scaled up to admit on a different basis for a wider range of courses. It also highlights the pros and cons of the radical French université open access system.

The Office for Studentspublished an early evaluation of the Addressing Barriers to Student Success programme covering the first year of programme delivery. It looks at how the programme is working, lessons learnt, and potential for cross-institutional partnerships as enablers for trialling and scaling up as well as the organisational and pedagogical approaches that seek to address differential student outcomes. Figure 3.5 on page 22 lists some of the successful activities which have addressed student success so far and page 33 has a what works diagram:

Finally the recommendation is for a three year programme (rather than the intended two) otherwise the results of the interventions will now be known and that the OfS should consider the academic calendar when funding programmes of this nature.

Q- David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has a policy on helping students with children to study at university while providing childcare support.

A – Sam Gyimah:

The government recognises the value of parents continuing in, or returning to, education and provides support to those enrolled on recognised education courses. Eligible student parents may be able to claim a Childcare Grant, which offers support with up to 85% of their childcare costs, depending on their household income. The maximum Childcare Grant for the 2018 to 2019 academic year is: Up to £164.70 a week for one child. Up to £282.36 a week for two or more children. Parents’ Learning Allowance is additional funding to help students who are also parents. This can be used for everyday costs of study, such as books, study materials and travel.

League tables

Birkbeck has announced that it will no longer participate in UK league tables. Their statement notes good REF outcomes and a sliver TEF, but says that their league table position “gives a totally misleading view of the College”.

Entry tariffs – UK rankings reward universities for high entry grades, measuring inputs rather than outcomes. Birkbeck admits a wide range of students at different stages of their lives to widen access to education. To do this it has flexible entry requirements rather than strict rules about A level grades – the majority of students are mature and while many have valuable work experience, they may have been outside formal education for some time. Birkbeck’s flexible entry grades have the effect of pulling it down the rankings and, in effect, this penalises the College for its mission.

Retention rates – Birkbeck’s students are often working or caring during the day and more vulnerable to changes in circumstances elsewhere in their lives. To compare this cohort with school leavers learning through daytime teaching elsewhere in the sector is misleading. Tables measure full-time students only. Birkbeck actually has one of the highest completion rates for part-time students in the sector. This reflects our expertise in supporting students combining work, family and other commitments with their degrees.

Student spend – As Birkbeck students are taught in the evening, and often work during the day, the College does not provide its own dedicated leisure facilities (although students have access to the facilities shared by all members of the University of London). Again these mean Birkbeck’s score is reduced in domestic tables.

This is really a criticism of the over-simplified view that league tables give, compared to (say) the TEF (much criticised in its own right, of course, but much more nuanced). The first point above is one that will resonate with many across the sector. Progression from year 1 to year 2 is of course a metric in the TEF, which uses benchmarks so that Birkbeck would not be penalised for its model.

Postgraduate Research Experience Survey

Postgraduates researchers continue to rate their experience positively, with 8/10 who are satisfied overall. However, this represents a 2% decline since 2017.

They were positive about their supervision, with 9/10 PGRs satisfied with their supervisors’ knowledge, feedback and availability. Postgraduates were less positive about the research culture, with 63% of respondents reporting positively.

In contrast to undergraduate survey findings, PRES 2018 results indicate that UK domicile students of black ethnicity are the most likely to believe their research degree programme is worthwhile; and, again in contrast to the Advance HE – HEPI Student Academic Survey, postgraduate students working long hours in paid employment did not appear to be disadvantaged.

PGRs with a disability, however, were less positive about their experience, facing increasing challenges as they progress through their studies.

The OfS have also issued an invitation to tender for a taught postgraduate student survey. It is described as an exploratory sample based survey intended to gather responses from around 30,000 PG students.

It said: “‘Free speech’ is such a widely applied term, it is impossible to narrow down all of the correspondence related to this subject.” We were told that the information was held in a “correspondence logging system” and not on a spreadsheet. “So the department estimates that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the cost threshold applicable to central government. This is £600 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days locating, retrieving and extracting the information,” the department said.

Other news

Sexual Misconduct: AMOSSHE published an Insight report which researched students’ expectations of their universities following reporting or disclosure of sexual misconduct by or against students. The report notes a reluctance to report sexual misconduct and that emotional wellbeing support is crucial to student’s following disclosure.

EEA Workers: Those following the Migration Advisory Committee’s EEA workers investigation and reporting may find this UCEA webpage interesting. It brings together the major sources on the topic and publishes the UCEA red amber green briefing response to the committee’s report.

Brexit – No deal prep: On Friday the Government released more guidance for various sectors on how to prepare for Brexit should we leave the EU with no deal.

Chief Scientific Adviser (Foreign and Commonwealth Office): Professor Carole Mundell was announced as the new Chief Scientific Adviser. She will also continue in her role as Professor of Extragalactic Astronomy at Bath University. The Chief Scientific Adviser represents UK science interests internationally, using science relationships to deliver the UK’s foreign policy priorities. She will work closely with the UK’s Science and Innovation Network to facilitate links between British and international scientists to drive future economic growth; tackle global challenges such as Anti-Microbial Resistance, Patient Safety, girls’ education and to support the conservation and sustainable use of the Ocean.

Professor Mundell commented: Science is an international endeavour and is most effective when it draws on diverse talent to push the frontier of knowledge and tackle the biggest challenges facing our planet. I am honoured to have been appointed FCO CSA and am excited to work with the UK’s Science and Innovation Network and add value to the FCO’s prosperity and security work around the world.

Mr. Georgios Digkas, a PhD candidate of University of Groningen, the Netherlands, visited Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, UK. He shared his research on the area of Technical Debt with BU partners and colleagues on 27 September 2018. He is also working on EU FIRST project .

A Bournemouth University team from the Faculty of Science and Technology visited University of Groningen for FIRST mid-term review. It was a very productive meeting with a lot of effective outcomes for research and knowledge exchange. Dr. Lai Xu and Dr. Paul de Vrieze are FIRST coordinators representing Bournemouth University and the team is pleased to announce that FIRST will continue to move towards a factory of the future for European Union.

I recently had the opportunity to apply for a grant as principal investigator. The reason for writing this post today is to say thanks to everyone involved, including the RKEO staff, the Co-investigators (Paula Callus in particular), the partner institutions but also all colleagues who gave us suggestions, supporting and helping also if not involved (Isabella Rega and Richard Berger were some of these).

On reflection, I would have done all of it differently. More time was needed (possibly not when on Annual Leave and not night time), partners need to be in place well before the call is out, reference letters cannot be asked for last minute, etc. I made all (or almost all) the mistakes above, but I had a very clear idea about the project and I felt surrounded by enthusiastic colleagues who were happy to share their expertise with me. I now know I have still a lot to learn and I can’t wait for the next opportunity.

A good point was to take notes which will be used for next grant applications. Somehow it does not matter if we will get the funding at this first attempt, we are looking forward to improving the application and the project itself, which will require more research. Yes, applying for grants is not a boring task, there is a lot of research involved which brings new ideas and opens up opportunities, whether you get the funding or not.

I hope this post will be read as a positive gentle push to apply for grants and not only because it’s the Institution in need of more grants applications but because the process itself is incredibly enriching. I hope my colleagues enjoy their future grant applications as much as I did.

The Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institutes of Health has announced a funding opportunity to provide a mechanism of support to research organizations interested in clinically translating already optimized quantitative imaging software tools capable of measuring or predicting the response of cancer to clinical therapies, or in translating imaging software tools for planning and validating radiation therapy treatment strategies in clinical trials. The proposed research effort should be an extension of the research that successfully completed the tasks of developing and optimizing the chosen software tools or data collection methods intended to facilitate clinical decision making during clinical trials.

Summary :

Call opens : 5 January 2019

Call deadline : 5 February 2019

Award available : All direct costs not exceeding $500,000 each proposed year

The Innovator Awards support researchers who are transforming great ideas into digital healthcare innovations that could have a significant impact on human health. Individuals and teams from not-for-profit and commercial organisations can apply. Organisations can be of any size, based anywhere in the world.

Researchers working in any discipline and on any type of digital technology can apply. Examples of digital technologies include:

intelligent: artificial intelligence and machine learning

data driven: data analytics and informatics

immersive: virtual and augmented reality

connected: internet of things (IoT), networks and sensors.

Projects must be innovative, disruptive and address an unmet healthcare need or challenge.

2. Call for Carbon Capture and Utilisation Demonstration

As part of the government’s Clean Growth Strategy BEIS has allocated up to £20 million to design and construct carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) demonstration projects. This programme is designed to encourage industrial sites to capture carbon dioxide which could then be used in industrial applications, while enabling learning and development of capture technologies at an intermediate scale, so reducing costs and risks.

The overall aims of the CCU demonstration programme are:

to demonstrate carbon capture and utilisation at a number of key industrial sites in the UK

to demonstrate and accelerate cost reductions in carbon capture technology in the order of 20 to 45%, i.e. £10-20/MWh

to encourage a project pipeline of follow-on CCU projects that will help less mature, but more novel technology to be demonstrated at scale; and

to improve understanding of the cost and performance of carbon capture technology

PalaeoGo! is a project funded by Bournemouth University (BU) via its Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) that aims to show how augmented reality (AR) can be used as an educational tool at natural history museums, national parks and in any open space or landscape. We have developed a test app to explore different ways of delivering AR content focused on extinct megafauna, everything from Jurassic dinosaurs to Ice Age mammoths. Augmented reality uses the camera feed in a smartphone and overlays it with information, in our case to bring extinct megafauna to life! Take your selfie with a T-Rex, swim with a Mosasaur and Megalodon, or if you prefer walk with an Ice Age mammoth.

The PalaeoGo! Team is running a major user trial in the autumn of 2018. Over eight weeks this autumn we are seeking your help to both test and develop our ideas. Our aim is to give you access to our test app and with it the resources for you to use with your friends and family. The beasts are coming, and you can join in the fun!

To join the trial, you need to visit our website and leave details of your phone and a live email address. You will also find a Participant Information Sheet and Participant Agreement Form which gives you more details on the study. We seek your consent to use your feedback anonymously in our work, and to keep on file your email for the duration of the trial. We will contact you directly with everything you need for your smartphone. This will be either via our own PalaeoGo! Test App or via the commercial App Zappar depending on the make and model of your phone. We may ask some ‘super-users’ to explore both.

Register by the 21 September 2018 and you will receive the app during the week of the 24 September 2018. We will be on hand during Fresher fair and Induction to sign you up and show you how.

The first update will roll on the 1 November 2018 and the trial will end on the 30 November 2018 when we will ask you for feedback.

We ask you to link your selfies and images and tweets using @Palaeo_Go – no need to wait till the end of the test to tell us what you think and to help shape our ideas.

This project is an interdisciplinary collaboration between computer animators, computer scientists and natural scientists. The project is led by Peter Truckel, Marcin Budka and Matthew Bennett.

A £20m Hydrogen Supply Programme is now open for registration of interest with a deadline of 21 November 2018. This £20 million Hydrogen Supply programme aims to accelerate the development of low carbon bulk hydrogen supply solutions in industry, power, heat and transport. It is aimed at projects at a technology readiness level (TRL) of 4 to 7, which could result in lower capital or operating costs when compared to Steam Methane Reformer with Carbon Capture & Storage (SMR+CCS), or improve the capture rates at a comparable cost.

The European Commission is currently advertising a tender opportunity on the ‘Study on energy costs, taxes and the impact of government interventions on investments in the energy sector’ with the following aim:

The aim is to collect information on energy generation costs, system and external costs in the energy sector, in parallel with looking at taxes related the use of energy paid to the general budget, and to build up an inventory on government interventions related to energy. The study will cover the 28 Member States of the EU, all major energy sources and beyond the energy sector the main energy consuming branches, such as industry, transport and agriculture. Beyond the EU the study aims at building a database as complete as possible for G20 countries. In order to feed in the initiatives of the Energy Union, the study will identify best practices in the EU Member States to measure subsidies to fossil fuels, and it will analyse the impact of fossil fuel subsidies on decarbonisation objectives of EU policies and investments in climate friendly energy technologies. The next energy prices and costs report and the State of the energy Union report could use the results of the study.

A £25million funding competition from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund will be available to innovative businesses with projects to develop batteries for future electric vehicles.

The Faraday battery challenge is a £246 million investment to bring forward the next generation of electric vehicles. These will be powered by high-performance batteries that are cost-effective, lightweight, durable and safe, and can be recycled.

Funding details

This competition is to support business-led research and development to improve batteries for automotive applications.

There are 2 opportunities to apply, depending on the stage of your project, which are:

up to £23 million for industrial research and development

up to £2 million for feasibility studies

In both opportunities projects should aim to:

make it easier to scale up battery production and use

build the UK supply chain

Please see below a summary of the funding details:

Competition opens : 17 September 2018

Deadline : 12 December 2018

Lead : UK-based business OR research and technology organisation (in collaboration with other businesses, academic organisations, charities, public sector or research and technology organisations)

Available award : between £500,000 and £15million

Project duration : between 3 and 18 months

Please see this link for more information about this funding opportunity.

EPSRC intends to establish a NetworkPlus to develop and build on industry-academic relationships in Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security (TIPS), bringing together relevant parts of the TIPS community and a variety of stakeholders, including the CyberInvest members and other users, to identify the key opportunities where industry-academic collaboration is needed, build collaborations and grow the area of research and innovation for the benefit of the UK.

Involvement from a broad range of disciplines relevant to TIPS is required to include those beyond the purely technical elements, such as psychology, politics, legal and ethical studies among others. Non-academic stakeholders, including CyberInvest partners, will be essential participants. The NetworkPlus could undertake a variety of activities including workshops, events, feasibility studies, secondments and horizon scanning. Applicants are encouraged to be innovative in their approach.

Please find a summary of the call below:

Opening date : 3 September 2018

Closing date : 3 December 2018

Available funding : £1.7m

There will be a webinar on 18 October at 14:30 which will feature a presentation from EPSRC contacts and an opportunity to ask any questions. To register to participate, please complete the registration form embedded on this call page. Please note: registration for the webinar will close on 17 October 2018 at 17:00.